Monthly Archives: March 2020

Montreal Post-Deadline Look 2020

The Punisher

Montreal had a busy couple of days leading up to the deadline, on Tuesday they acquired star forward Filip Forsberg and vet shutdown defenceman Erik Johnson. Wednesday night they swapped out Johnson for the a more offensive orientated d-man in Mattias Ekholm. Finally yesterday they acquired big bruising defenceman Mark Boroweicki. With these moves can the Habs be considered a contender? No not really, the team’s d-core is pretty solid and Murray is a decent starter but the forward core is lacking talent. So the question might be asked is what was the point of moving out youth when the team is clearly not a contender this year?

“Every move we’ve made over the past month or so was to better equip us for being a contender next season” said GM MacPherson. “We are letting our youth develop one more year and make a run at our 2nd ever GVFHL title. There are only a couple of moves left to complete our vision of how the team should look next year”. Looking at the team this year they are no longer a complete pushover and should make whomever they may get matched up with in the playoffs (if they make it) work for a series win as they have added a lot of talented offensive players like Forsberg and Ekholm, some solid two-way guys like Eller and Martinez, and some bruising vets like Boroweicki and Foligno. Looking at the team next year this is how they project to look

Tkachuk – Forsberg – Strome

??? – Danault – Olofsson

Foligno – Eller – ???

??? – Suzuki – ???

Severson – Ekholm(Loyalty)

Orlov – Shattenkirk

Irwin/Sandin – Boroweicki

Merzenkins

Murray

With 4 forward spots to fill there is still a lot of growth for next years team to endure, but Habs management seems like they have a plan in place to fill these spots and maybe they will make some noise next year.

 

Habs Acquire Forsberg, Coming Out of Rebuild

It’s been a wild couple of years for the Habs. From winning the cup in 2018 to burning it all down last year to now looking to make it back into the playoffs led by their youth. Today the Habs made a blockbuster bringing in Filip Forsberg from Arizona along with Erik Johnson and some late draft picks in return for top prospects Spencer Knight, Erik Brannstrom, Eeli Tolvanen, 4M and some early draft picks.This move came as a total shock as at the start of the year it was thought only a miracle would get them into the playoffs. Well as of right now the Habs are 4 points ahead of the 9th place Capitals and adding Forsberg to their sputtering offence will likely help the Habs stay ahead of the Caps the rest of the season.

“This move wasn’t made to make a push this season” said GM MacPherson. “This move was made for the future as a lot of our young prospects such as Tkachuk, Suzuki, Olofsson and several others have shown they can play at a pro level. Forsberg just adds an already established young star player into the mix to help with the growing pains. The franchise has lacked a leader since Ovie was traded and now we hope Forsberg can be that leader. We don’t expect him to be as good as Ovie but we think he can be the guy to make or break a playoff series for us”.

With the Habs coming out of a rebuild so fast people might be asking “can this work?” as the Habs only truly tanked for 1 season. The Habs are looking to show the rest of the league that it doesn’t take 20 seasons to do a great rebuild. The Habs hope to model their team the way the Colorado Avalanche have been shaped up as the Avs have been threat to win the cup every year in the leagues existence, which includes 2 trips to the finals and 1 cup. The Habs have their sight on title contention come next season according to reports. With UFA being a gong show there will be a lot of doubters but there were also a lot of doubters that the Habs could even be a top 12 team in the east this year, so anything is possible.